Ornamented leather.



H. E. ENSLIN.

ORNAMENTED LEATHER. APPLICATION FILED 001'. 4. 1913.

1,1 15,183. Patented Oct.27,1914.

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.HliillltBER']? E. ENSLIN, OF, MALDEN, MASSACHUSETTS, ASSIGNOR TO UNITEDSHOE MACHINERY COMIPANY, OF IPATERSON, NEW JERSEY, A CORPORATION OF NEWJERSEY.

ORNAMENTTED LEATHER.

To all whom it may concern:

Maiden, in the county of Middlesex, and

State of Massachusetts, have invented cer-, tain Improvements inOrnamented Leather, of which the following description, in connectionwith the accompanying drawings, is a specification, like referenceEharacters on the drawings indicating like parts in the several figures.

This invention relates to an article con sisting of a piece of leatherto one side of which an ornamental pattern has been imparted. Forexample, it may be an inexpensive piece of leather to which has beenimparted the appearance of a more expensive variety. Heretofore, suchornamentation hasbeen produced by methods such as embossing, whichrequire both expensive apparatus and a good grade of leather to becarried out successfully. I I

Ordinarily, leather which is used for ornamental purposes comprises aflesh side and a grain side, the grain side being the display side; andin order to promote clearness, the present invention will be describedin connection with these two sides, the flesh and the grain. I havefound that by shrinking the flesh side of a piece of leather withoutshrinking the grain side, or by shrinking the flesh side more than'thegrain side, a product can be obtained of considerable less extent thanthe original piece which is smooth on the flesh side, and wrinkled orpuckered on the grain side, and that this wrinkling or puckering can beso produced as to present the appearance of expensive leathers. It isdesirable that the shrinking be confined as nearly as possible to theflesh side and that it be produced uniformly so that in the finishedpiece of leather said flesh side will be smooth and have approximatelythe same appearance that it had before being shrunk, the wrinkling orpuckering being confined to the grain side.

In producing the article of the present invention, the piece of leathershould be held taut durin the shrinking operation so that the naturetendency of the leather to curl when a selected spot is shrunk: will beresisted; and l have found that if the leather is so held it will passthrough the' shrinking operation referred to above without havingimparted to it any considerable Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented (Oct. 27, 31914.

Application filed October 4, 1913. Serial No. 793,494..

curling or warping, the finished product being substantially as flat asthe original ex cept, of course, for the wrinkling of the grain side.The article thus consists of a piece ofleather, one side of which issmooth and shrunken and the other side of which bears upon its surfacein wrinkles or puckers an ornamental pattern. These and other features.of the invention will be described in connection with illustratedarticles and pointed out in the appended claims.

Referring now to the drawings, Figures 1 and 2 'show the appearance ofthe grain side to two pieces of leather, before said pieces have beensubjected to the shrinking process referred to above. Fig. 3-shows thegrain side of the finished product produced from the piece of Fig. 1whenthe shrinking is permitted to take place approximately equally inall directions. Fig. 4L shows the grain side of the finished productproduced from the piece of Fig. 2 when more tension has been maintained"from each corner to the corner diagonally opposite than in the otherdirections, Fig. 5 is an enlarged sec tion of a portion of the articleshown in Fig. 3, Fig. 6 is a similar section of a portion of the articleshown in Fig. 4.

llhe shrinking of the flesh side of the piece of leather may beaccomplished in any suitable manner. For example, the piece may beheldby a contractile frame which is normally held in expanded positionby springs or weights; and tothe flesh side of a piece of leather soheld may be applied a shrinking agent, such as heat. In producing thearticle by the application of heat an ordinary blast lamp may be used,the operator causing the tip of the flame to travel over the flesh sideof the leather. Care should be taken, however,,not to allow the flame toremain for any appreciable length of time in one spot since, aside fromthe danger of spoiling the leather by burning it, which is obviouslyliable to occur, if heat is allowed to strike through into the grainside to the same extent as into the flesh side, said side will be shrunkequally with the flesh side and the finished product will be smooth onboth sides and have the same a pearance as the original, except forsize.

onsequentlythe heat should be ap )lied only momentarily t0 the surface 0i the leather and then immediately VVltlldlZtlYIl,l result which may beaccomplished by moving the flame across the surface of the leather so asto make the application of the heat progressive. Theblast lamp referredto above is typical of anything which will give ofl intense heat, sinceit is desirable, when the shrinking is accomplished by heat, that anintense heat be available so that its application may be made to causethe flesh side to shrink instantly before the heat has penetrated thegrain side to any considerable extent.

By varying the tension along various lines in the piece of leather undertreatment. and

by controllingthe application of the shrinking agent various patternsmay be produced.

In the piece of leather-shown in Fig. 3, for

example, the tension has been maintained approximately equal inalldirections while i in the piece shown in Fig. lmore tension has beenmaintained along lines extending from] each corner to the diagonallyopposite one than in'any other directions.

No" further description of the method of producing the article will begiven since the method itself forms no part of the present invention,and an illustrative method is fully set forth in my co-pendingapplication Se- I ,rial N o. 7 8 7 ,943, of which the presentapplication .is a continuation so far as common SubJect-matter isconcerned.

It should be particularly noted that the "appearance of the flesh sideremains practically unchanged. VVithfirm, heavy, close fibered leatherthis is. most nearly true; with soft, light, loose fibered leatherctheflesh side, after treatment, may show to some extent the reverse of thepattern whichhas been imparted to the grain side. The effect of heatthus momentarily applied is to con-' tract that side of the piece ofleather which is subjected to said heat thereby reducing its size andcausing the untreated side to I wrinkle or pucker in order toaccommodateitself to this reduction. The appearance of the surface'of/the treated. sidethus remains clearness.

Having thus described my invention, what I claim and desire to secure byLetter Patent of the United States is:

1. An article of manufacturewhifch consists of a piece ofleather, onesideof which is smooth and shrunken and the other side of which bearsupon it 'in wrinkles or puckers, an ornamental pattern. I

' 2. An article of manufacture which consists of apiece of leather,fibers of one side of which are compact and shrunken and the fibers ofthe other side of which are approximately-in their normal condition, theshrunken side being smooth and the otherv side being wrinkled. I

3. An article ofmanufacture which consists of a piece of leather havinga shrunken, compact flesh side, the surface of which is smooth and aless shrunken, lesscox'npact grain side, the surfaceof which is wrin--kled. I

4. An article of manufacture which con.- sists of a piece of leather oneside of which is smooth and'shrunken and the other side of which bearsupon it ornamental wrinkles having different radii of curvature. 1

In-testimony whereof I have signed my name to this specification in thepresence of two subscribing witnesses I HERBERT EL'ENSLIN.

Witnesses: I

CHEs'mn E. Rooms, I RUTH E. \VARD.

